Judge Shopping and the Abortion Pill Case - podcast episode cover

Judge Shopping and the Abortion Pill Case

Mar 17, 202333 min
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Episode description

Constitutional law expert Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas Law School, discusses the growing problem of plaintiffs hand-picking the specific district judge who hears their lawsuit, as illustrated by the Texas case where anti-abortion groups trying to block the sales of an abortion pill, chose a conservative judge in Amarillo.
Securities litigator Anthony Sabino, co-founder of Sabino & Sabino and a professor of law at St John's University, discusses the investigations and lawsuits around the bank failures.
June Grasso hosts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. A case in the Western District of Texas is one of the biggest fights over abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion. As we've seen, what starts in Texas doesn't stay in Texas.

It often has grave national implications. That's Wendy Davis of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes talking about the case where anti abortion groups are trying to block the sales of a key abortion pill nationwide, a pill which was approved by the FDA decades ago, and they've brought their case in Amarillo, Texas, where they're one certain of getting Judge Matthew kesmeric a Trump appointee who's been criticized for his views opposing abortion

and LGBTQ rights. It's an illustration of the problem with single judge divisions and judge shopping something, just as Alena Kagan complained about in a case this term in Texas, there are divisions within districts. You can pick your trial court judge. You know, you play by the rules, that's fine, but you pick your trial court judge. One judge stops a federal immigration policy in its tracks. Joining me is Professor Stephen Vlanik of the University of Texas Law School,

who's been studying this issue and written about it. Steve, we've all heard about forum shopping. How is what's happening in Texas any different? And I think it's worth distinguishing between two different factories. So, in any legal system that has relatively permissive rules about where you can file a lawsuit, you know that doesn't just narrow it down to one jurisdiction for every single lawsuit, You're gonna have forum shopping.

That is that you're going to have efforts by whoever controls where the case is filed to file in a place that is strategically advantageous, either because the general composition of the bench is favorable, or because the jury pool is favorable, or because maybe it's more geographically convenient to one side of the case and not the other. June. That is, to a degree inevitable and unavoidable in our

legal system. What we're seeing a lot more of these days is what I think because a far more nefarious version of that, which is judge shopping, filing in tiny, usually single judge subdivisions of federal district courts where by filing in that particular place you have a one hundred percent chance of drawing a specific judge, where basically the plantiff can choose not just where to file, but by choosing where to file, the plantiffs can say, I want

my case to be heard by Judge Smith. And I think that's not a brand new phenomenon, but we're seeing, and I think being exploited a lot more systemically and a lot more visibly in cases with partisan valances than was the case really at any recent point in the history of our legal system, and a lot more in Texas.

So yeah, I mean, so Texas is not unique. You know, the headlines are all out of Texas, and there are some reasons for that, but it's worth stressing there are single judge divisions in a decent minority, probably around thirty five percent of the federal district courts in the country have at least somewhere where if you file, maybe you

get it assigned to a single judge. What I think mixed Texas union because we've got a lot of So of the twenty seven total divisions in Texas across our four district courts, there are eight that are single judge divisions, and you know, June, I think we should say a single judge divisions staffed by judges who I think are relatively outliers when it comes to the ideological spectrum, and in the fifth Circuit right where you have a fairly

sympathetic appellate bench as well. And so I think there's a reason why we've seen the state of Texas steer lawsuit after lawsuit against the Biden administration to the single judge divisions. Why we've seen this mythopristone case filed of all places in the country in Amarillo, Texas, so that it could be assigned to Dge Matthew kaz Marit. I think it's the pattern that's the problem, not just individual instances there. Ope, has Texas denied that it's filing in

these districts to get conservative judges? No, I mean the irony is, though, you know, in three of the cases Texas has filed against the federal government, the federal government has now moved the transfer either to a different venue, like to a different district court, or at least to a different division within the same district court. And the first of those a case unhelpfully called Texas versus Department

of Homeland Security. There was a hearing where Texas represented on the record in open court that they filed that particular lawsuit in the Victoria Division of the Southern Districtive of Texas because they wanted Judge Tipton. And you know what's remarkable of that is that, notwithstanding that concession, Judge Tipton still denied DJ's motion to transfer, basically because DJ wouldn't publicly accuse him of being biased. And you know, June,

to me that miss is the point. The question is not whether Judge Tipton is or whether Judge Kasmarica is biased. The question is whether the reasonable person looking at this behavior by playing dist you know, by Texas buy on all these lawsuits in these district cords, would say that

this looks like the system is being manipulated. And if the answer is yes, then that ought to be a pretty compelling reason for judges to say, you know, we don't want to abide that, we don't want to enable that, we don't want to support that, and yet here we are. Is the real problem, or a secondary problem, the issuance of nationwide injunctions. So you have a judge in Amarillo, Texas issuing an injunction that applies to the whole country.

I think nationwide injunctions compound the problem June, because you know, among other things, they ratchet up the stakes of each of these individual cases. But you know, I think an individual district judge, even without a nationwide injunction, could still cause a stair amount of mischief by him or herself. So the nationwide injunctions I think have made this worse

and more visible. But actually I think the sort of the judge shopping phenomenon is a problem no matter what kind of relief the parties receive, king especially where you have a defendant like the federal government that, even if not such a to a nationwide injunction right would probably still do its best to comply with a more geographically limited court order. So nation wide injunctions I think are part of why we're now paying more attention to this phenomenon.

But I don't think there's a problem here. As far as the case before, Judge Kasmeric trying to block sales of the abortion pill nationwide. So he told the lawyer's last Wednesday that he would delay putting the hearing on the docket until late Tuesday to try to minimize disruptions and possible protests. Were his actions unconstitutional, I wouldn't go

that far. I mean, I think the reality is that Judge Kasmaric didn't close the hearing to the public, and so from the first memo perspective, I don't think there's any issues. But the broader point here is that I think folks would have reacted to that new a lot

differently if there hadn't been Judge shopping here. That is to say, if you know the plaintiffs seeking to revoke the FDA has approval of missa pristone had randomly drawn a randomly assigned district judge, I don't think there'd be nearly the sort of fear that the sticks is in

anytime you see an unusual procedural order like this. So in that respect, I actually think Judge Kasmaris probably is a victim of nothing other than the playstiff's manipulation of his docket, where what he really thought was in the best interest of he and his family's personal safety. The courthouse, yeah, looks that much more sinister because of the transparent Judge shopping with the plays engaged in to get the case to him in the first place, it has the federal

government moved to change venue in that case. It hasn't, because what the plaintiffs did in that case was they created a corporate form in Amarillo as a way of basically trying to manufacture venue there. So there's actually a stronger arguments somehow that Amarilla is an appropriate venue totally because of the paper steps the planets took to create an Amarilla based planiff. That's why the Texas cases are different, because Texas the states can't just sort of change where

it's located. And so that's why I think that's where we've seen DJ fight on the transfer question, at least thus far unsuccessfully. Could they ask the judge to recuse himself because of his long held positions prior legal work and decision since becoming a judge, I mean that since they could, I think if they were going through they would have already. And you know, I think that sort of again misses what to me is the real problem here.

One can believe that all of these judges are active in good state, you know, perhaps coming from just a different set of priors than some of us might have, and still think that it ought to be incumbent upon them to appreciate what it looks like to outsiders that cases are being deliberately steered to them that have a

remarkable alignment with views they've previously taken publicly. To put a different way, I would have thought that spederal judges who are worried about the appearance of impropriety would be the first to push back if plaintiffs were so obviously in transparently trying to manipulate their dockets. At least thus bar June, they've been the last. And I think that's

part of the story here. Well, if Judge Kazmeric doesn't know by now that people have focused on this issue, there have been so many articles about it and discussions about the fact that he has this particular case and the way it got to him, it seems like he doesn't care. I think that's right, and I think the question then is why not. This is not about Judge Kasmaric. I think this is about any of the judges who

are seeing these cases being scared to them. I mean, it's pretty remarkable June that you know, over the twenty nine lawsuit Texas is file that comes to Biden administration in Texas dish records in the last two plus years. None of them have been filed in Austin, which is where the Texas government is. None in Houston, none in Dallas,

none in San Antonio, non Inel Pasto. And so I guess the question is why isn't it more trouble and too judges who are having all of these cases steered to them that the plainists in these cases are behavior this way, and I think the irony is June that's what's reinforced and charges that this is the MANI playing on the system. That the judges themselves are refusing to see this as manipulation. Those on the other side of this will say, well, the Democrats did it when Trump

was in office. Yes, there's a lot of what abouts them in response here. So two responses, I think. One is that President Trump was subject to a lot of lawsuits by Democratic attorneys general, and one is that there have always been single judge division. Factually, both of those

things are true, but those are pretty different circumstances. Let's say California, right, So, California is sued the Trump administration on a number of occasions, and most of those losses I think almost all of them were brought in Oakland,

in the Northern District of California. Well, one, there is a pretty large office of the California Attorney General in Oakland, and so it's not like Texas going to Amarillo, where there's no Attorney General's office, and so in that respect you don't see the same kind of manipulating where you

can file. And to June, the Northern District is not divided the way that Texas is courted bar there's no place in California where you can file a lawsuit you can have a one percent chance of drawing a particular federal district judge. Right, The real compoint of those who would defend the Trump administration in this context is that the overall district court bench in the northern districts of California is heavily staffed with Democratic appointees. And that just

goes back to the difference between forum shopping and judge shopping. Right, there's a degree to which forum shopping is always going

to be unavoidable. But unless you think that every single judge appointed by a president of the same party is going to rule the same way in every case, there ought to be a pretty big difference between having a case randomly assigned to one of say, ten Democratic appointed district judges, and having a case that was brought in Amarillo for the specific purpose of being assigned not just to a Republican appointed district judge, but to a particular

Republican appointed judge. That's the difference that I think it's good been lost in these responses. As you mentioned in your article, Justice Elena Kagan call the Texas Solicitor General on this. Is there anything the Supreme Court can do? I mean I think there is so. First, of course, the venue statutes, our statue said the Supreme Court could interpret. But second, in the Supreme Court I think has a

bully pulpit. I mean Chief Justice Robert in his year end report in twenty twenty one, when out of his way to single out how there was a judge in Waco who was basically trying to hijack the nationwide docket of patent cases, and how one of the ways who was doing that was by saying, if you file your patent losses in Waco, there's a one hundred percent chance it will be assigned to meet Robert said that was a problem and last year, the Dishre Court changed its

rule so that it could no longer have a one assignment policy. So I think the Supreme Court can do things formally. June, I think the Supreme Court can do things vocally to sort of push back against this practice. But I also think the dishre courts can fix it themselves. I mean, the dishre courts have the power to change

their vision of business rules. That's what happened with cases in Waco, and so I think the real question is why don't disrecords realize that it's in their interest to avoid these kinds of appearances and change their own rules proactively going forward. Can one federal judge in Texas change that or does it require more well, So, Congress has delegated the power to divide business within disrecords to the chief judges of each disrecord. Now, of course, the chief judges,

you know, they have colleagues. They're not trying to offend their colleagues. So the chief judges are going to change those rules, usually in concert with their colleagues. But it is ultimately up to the chief judges. And if the chief churches aren't going to do it themselves, then Congress ought to be consider whether we want that power to be held by disrecords in the first place. It's such an important point, Steve, thanks so much. That's Professor Stephen

Vladdock of the University of Texas Law School. After the failure of the second and third largest banks in US history, President Joe Biden sought to reassure jittery consumers and markets that the US financial system is on solid footing. He also promised to hold those responsible accountable. There are important questions of how these banks got into the circumstance in the first place. We must get the full accounting of what happened and why those responsible can be held accountable.

And my administration no one in mindment. No one is above the law. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have launched investigations into the Silicon Valley bank collapse and possible misconduct by bank officers, and according to Bloomberg's sources, both agencies were already investigating Signature Bank and potential money laundering by its crypto clients. Both banks have also been hit with class action investor lawsuits. Joining me

is security litigator Anthony Sabino of Sabino and Sabino. He's also a professor of law at Saint John's University. Is it much of a surprise that the Justice Department and the sec are investigating after these banks failures? No, not at all, for the simple reason that banks are a

matter of public trusts. And again, while they are private institutions and they're owned by the shareholders, the point is that it's a matter of maintaining the integrity of the banks and the overall banking system and assuring the public that these institutions are trustworthy. Also, especially in these troubled times, we have the many new challenges that are affective us

in all industries and including the banking sector. So, for example, one of the things that's become recently known is that apparently the Justice Department was looking into, and emphasized looking into, no actual action taken yet signature banks dealings with respect to cryptocurrency holdings. And since that is such a nascent

field and we're not too sure about that. Obviously, law enforcement has concerns about cryptocurrency being manipulated by persons for purposes of money laundering, so on and so forth, and

again there's really nothing new about that. June for the reason that the anti money Laundering laws otherwise known as AML have been around for decades, and it's a routine matter for the Justice Department, the Treasure Department, so on, and so forth to look into this to make sure no one is engaging in money laundering, whether it is in cold, hard cash as you might have had in the cocaine wars of the nineteen eighties or nowadays in

the twenty twenties. With respect to cryptocurrency, SEC chair Gary Gensler said, we at the SEC are particularly focused on monitoring for market stability and identifying and prosecuting any form of misconduct that might threaten investors. So they and the Justice Department are looking for misconduct by bank executives. What kind of misconduct might they be looking at? Well, first of all, we have to distinguish these two distinct threads here,

as follows Chairman Gensler. Okay, while he's looking for purposes to maintain the integrity in the market, what his job is and what he's doing to his credit is his concern is the integrity of the securities market. Because again, as we've seen both signature as a VB and any other number of institutions. They're owned by shareholders, therefore separate and apart from the stability or in some cases the seizure and or collapse of the banks as a bank.

Per se Gensler in the sec their paramount concern is whether there's been truthful disclosure to shareholders, because that impacts those individual shareholders, the integrity of the market, so on and so forth. So all Chairman Gensler is doing the same. Look, we have the anti fraud provisions of the securities laws.

That's what we're here to enforce. So that's his bailiwick, that's his jurisdiction, and rightly so, the Justice Department has a wider portfolio, if you will, And what that involves is again looking into banking transactions as banking transactions, to assure that the anti money laundering laws are followed, that there's no manipulation of bank assets, so on and so forth, and also in a broader sense, to see if there was any fraud of manipulation, not necessarily just a security

So that comes within the jurisdiction as well to some degree, but more so was their fraud with respect to defrauding the depositors. And here June we have to draw the important distinction. Let's take as a VB bank, for example, there's two distinct groups of parties who've been injured. Here.

On the one hand, there are the folks who are stockholders, and so that agains the the sec and also on the criminal side of that, the Justice Department saying, okay, did you lie to your shareholders and injured them in terms of the stock market aspect of this. On the other hand, okay, the other group are the depositors who, thankfully, because of the government's action, it looks like they're going to be made whole or if I may use a

crew term bailed out. But the bottom line is the concern of the Justice Department in that regard is to make sure that if there was any deception of depositors, in essence, nothing more complicated than people put money in any of these institutions, they thought it was safe, and as it turned out, they were deceived. So that's something that obviously the Justice departments crack down upon. You use the term bailout, and the Biden administration doesn't like that word, Well,

that's politics, okay. And again it's been called everything from rescue to bailout etc. Etc. Okay, and there were genuine issues here that have been brought to the fore and need to be discussed. Certainly, we're all aware that since the nineteen thirties under FDR there is banking insurance. But again that has limits here, and a question has been raised. It's a legitimate one that needs to be examined in

an objective and dispassionate way. Is well, wait a minute, all right, are you fulfilling what the law requires as far as the insurance. That's clearly happened, But have you gone overboard? And are you also providing funding rescuing folks with deposits that exceed the statutory limit or depositors for various endeavors. I think it would be certain businesses, so

on and so forth. So again that's a matter more for the political arena, but it's still worthy of discussion because one of the things that and let me be frank, that troubles me most of all is the danger of as we call it, the moral hazard. Because my personal interpretation, free enterprise has always been free to succeed but also free to fail, so to the extent that the government comes in and says, okay, well, here's SVB. All right, we'll make everybody whole. That's nice. All right, if they

do the same thing with signature, that's nice. But where does it end? Where does it end? Where fifteen years remove from governments? I'll use a less pejorative term assistance too, the major order makers, the financial sectors, so on and so forth. But we're still paying the price for that, all right. Where does government interventions stop? Where do we allow free enterprise to be truly free again to succeed

or conversely to fail? And certainly there's always the danger that our free enterprise system is going to be damaged by government assistance. Government rescues turns into government intervention and maybe government control. Those are very scary words, and I say them with great trepidation, but they should be out there to be discussed in any event. It's something we have to watch out for. So one thing that apparently is being investigated is whether stock sales by executives violated

trading rules. According to Bloomberg sources, security filing showed that the CEO Gregory Becker and the CFO Daniel Beck both so shares the week before the bank collapsed. Both sales were done under the ten B five one plans file thirty days earlier. So if they were done within that,

is there any problem. Well, again, this matter requires examination, but on its face, everything appears to be above board because what you've commented upon, and what you're able colleagues have already reported on within the last twenty four hours is the fact that federal law explicitly provides that high level corporate executives may, according to a stipulated plan basically a plan made in advance, may sell shares in their own companies. And that does not violate the law. It

does not qualify as inside of trading. And the reason if that is simply this. Okay. Even the highest corporate executives june their people just like us. So they need to pay their bills, and sometimes that involves selling their

stockholdings in their own companies. And also, like any prudent investor, they want to diversify their holdings and say, okay, a lot of my personal world is tied up in the company where I am the CEO, CFO, whatever, So that corporate executive says to herself, well, I need to diversify a little bit. Okay. Now, the problem is when they make these sales. Are they making them at a certain point in time based upon inside information that only they are privy too, that the market doesn't know, and oh

that's a huge problem. That's inside or trading. The reason the statute says explicitly what it does is you've finally quoted it is the fact that if you have a plan that you do in advance and make the appropriate filing with the governments, they look, okay, I'm going to sell shares in this amount at specific intervals. Basically, since you have a plan and you stick to it, you're working on information you had at that time which is in the public domain. So there can be no real accusation.

Oh you're used insider trading and basically you're violating the law in that regard. All right, but once again that's what the law says, and that's the theory, and again no action has been taken, no accusation should be made. But the government has the obligation as well as the right to examine this and basically assure that in fact, everything was done according to those plans. Okay, those then

one C plans and was carried out appropriately. If it is something on toward where these plans were modified at the last minute or something else that's call it peculiar went on, and it would appear that these sales were made contrary to these prior arrangements. Then that's something to talk about, and that's something that could get them folks in trouble. But again, I'm not saying there is a problem, but I'm also not saying there isn't a problem. Okay,

it requires further examination by law enforcement. It seems like a lot is being made of the fact that SVB did not have a chief risk officer for much of last year. Does that mean management was hiding something or didn't want to disclose something, or doesn't mean not much of anything. Well, again, my answer to that would be not necessarily okay, but it is something that should be looked at, can be looked at. Okay. Once again, people come and go from jobs all the time, whether it's

the CEO, whether it's the janitor. So people change jobs all the time. So there's nothing sinister at all about the fact that their former chief risk officer was in fact former and a new person came in. There's nothing necessarily insidious about the fact that there appears to be And I stress appears to be some sort of gap where the cro office was vacant for a period of time. However, okay, given those events, it is worthy of further examination. And

again I stress examination, not accusations. There is none. Will need to cast dispersions around, but the bottom line, it's worth looking at because it could be indicative that maybe there was a gap in terms of the office being filled. Who was fulfilling the CRORO function was the Board of directors, which has a fiduciary duty to oversee the operations of that bank, like with any other corporation, especially a publicly

held corporation. Were they being kept properly informed? Was the board itself exercising its fiduciary duty of care in making sure that it was up to date and informed about the levels of risk that SVB was taking, so on and so forth. So once again, I'm not saying there is a problem, but I'm also not saying there isn't a problem. It needs to be looked at, and that's what the government is doing and that's appropriate. But let's see what they find first before we make any wild accusations.

That would be my cautionary note. A class action lawsuit. The first one has been filed against SVB in the top executives by shareholders who allege they concealed from investors the impact that high interest rates would have on the tech and VC focused firm's business, leaving it particularly susceptible to a bank run. What kind of charges do you have to prove to succeed in one of these investor fraud lawsuits? Well, again, the standard for proven security supports

is very high. And again that follows the thousand year old tradition that anytime you accuse anyone of any kind of fraud, it's a higher legal standard. And the legal standard under federal law for securities fraud violations is exceedingly

high as well it should be. And to give you just a quick summary, it has to be proven that managers, okay the managements knowingly or with a reckless disregard for the truth, made material misrepresentations and or omissions, and that these were disseminated to the investing public and the public relied upon that, and as consequently when the truth came out,

they suffered a loss. So, in short form of June, what the class action plaintiffs have to do is, first of all, by the way, they have to be approved as a class, and there are rigorous procedures for that under the federal rules that govern such things. They have to demonstrate that there were misreps as we shorthand them misreps and or emissions, they were material in nature. And also they have to prove the important elements that either

management knew or should have known. That's what we call cienter in other words, evil intent, as in I'm lying, I know, I'm lying. I want to lie to you. Okay, to put in those pedestrian terms, so they have enough will battle that regard. But again, one cannot understate the seriousness of these charges because what it demonstrates is if these allegations were to be proven true, then it demonstrates

a willful disregard for being truthful with shareholders. And once again, put aside the fact for a moment that it's SVB or any banking institution. This would be true for any business, whether you're making donuts or cell phones or whatever. The bottom line is, when you sell your stock to the public, management is obligated by law to be truthful and displod two investors. That preserves market integrity, and that's got to

be our concern here abof on that count. There's a similar lawsuit against Signature Bank, also overclaimed that there were materially false or misleading statements. Right. One of the statements was that the chief executive officer claimed Signature was a well diversified bank within excess of one hundred billion dollars in assets. Is that the kind of statement that you

can sue over. Yes, it is, indeed, of course, provided you can prove that it was untrue and that the speaker of that statement, okay, knew it was untrue or had a reckless just regard for the truth. And again I'm basically couching in the words of the Supreme Court. And the lawsuit against Signature, which was foiled in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, is very interesting because it's

a counterpoint to the SVB lawsuit. As you've stated at my compliments, the SMVB lawsuit, the essence of the allegations is that, Okay, Managements, you did not disclose the risk with respect to changes in the interest rate. Okay, So we're faulting you for that that you've allegedly deceived investors as to the risks the bank was subject to its exposure to changes in the interest rate environment, which we're

going to now. The Signature lawsuit in Brooklyn also accuses for material misreps and omissions, as you've said June, but this is very different. What they're saying is just prior to the seizure over this past weekend by the State of New York and other authorities. They're claiming that management

misled investors by saying the bank is stable. And once again you've mentioned the very press releases that came out actually supposedly last Thursday, March nine, which are quoted extensively in the complaint in that Brooklyn federal court action, and in essence they've quoted and I should add selectively because that's what lawyers do. Okay, that's the way we litigate these cases. But you choose what's best for making your case.

And they've said that in these allegations, they've quoted various press releases by management at Signatures is saying in essence that everything's fine, we're diversified, we have plenty of assets, so on and so forth. So now these shareholders, which interestingly claiming a very compressed time frame of those who transacted in the stock or options to buy the stock

and so forth. But they're saying that by making these disclosures, these statements, there was misrepresentations, will more properly put, misrepresentations of signature's financial soundness, and therefore that's misleading. And once again, okay, these are very serious charges. The plaintiffs definitely have an uphill battle to prove they are fourth under the rigorous test that's been applied under the statute and by the

Supreme Court. But if they can be proven, okay, wow, all right, then the bank and the officers who were named defendants, they are in a heck of a lot of trouble. And not to mention, that's the civil litigation. And while it's on a separate yet parallel track, as you've mentioned earlier in our conversations today, there are inquiries by all sorts of regulatory authorities SEC. Okay, and the SEC is going to be interested in looking at this themselves.

From the security for an angle, the justice departments, the DFS here in New York, Department of Financial Services, in other words, of the old Superintendent of Banks. So there's a lot of folks who are going to be poking and prodding and looking at these statements and whether they were truthful or accurate and so on. Do you expect a lot more lawsuits like this sort of a pylon until they see who's going to lead the class action

if it's certified. Absolutely, okay, because that's what lawyers do. We love to pile on. Okay, that's a fact of life. In fact, if anything, I'm surprised that the best of my knowledge, I'll be it limited is I've only seen let's just say, rounded up to less than half a dozen. I expect again and even dozen of lawsuits to be filed by maybe even the end of this week, certainly

by this time next week. And again, you've reached a very crucial question there under current federal rules of four class actions, the federal judge and again, as of this morning, this case, I looked at the docket June, it hadn't even been assigned it to a judge, but the judge and broke. For example, for the federal case that's depending in the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, the judge who will be signed, he or she will basically hear evidence and

consider which plaintiff will be the lead plaintiff. Anybody can sue, but it's up to the judge decide. Okay, Miss Jones is most representative of the class. She has a law firm representing her and the putative classes we'd like to call it, that is most able, So the judge basically selects that. So you know it's going to be a competitive process, which is actually good because in essence, you will get a plaintiff who best can represent the class

in terms of her involvement in the situation. Her ability to speak on behalf of what I'm going to guess. So are tens of thousands of investors and a law firm that's well experienced and well equipped to prosecute the case to its fullest. It's been great getting your insights, Anthony. That's Anthony Sabino of Sabino and Sabino. And that's it for this edition of The bloom Or Glas Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on our

Bloomberg Law podcasts. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot Bloomberg dot com, Slash podcast, Slash Law, And remember to tune into The Bloomberg Glas Show every weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg

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